Tracing Your Genealogy For Your Family's Health
December 1st, 2008

Perhaps you do genealogy as a hobby, or perhaps you are interested in doing it as a profession to get a better grasp on history. Have you ever considered doing it for the health of you and your family, though? Medical genealogy is getting more and more interest from researchers recently. The reason is that much of what determines your health is likely inherited from your ancestors. In fact, many medical experts estimate that 30% of known diseases have some sort of genetic link. In addition, they feel that a number of known diseases like certain cancers, alcoholism, and heart disease my run in certain families.

Many people get into medical genealogy because they realize that a medical family history can be valuable given the above information. If you create a family history based on health, it can be a very useful tool for your doctor. He or she will be able to interpret patterns of health problems in the history of your family and thus be able to help you prevent similar problems for you and your immediate family. They may be even able to more easily diagnose certain problems you have.

So once you decide you are going to trace back your family's medical genealogy you need a starting point. Start in the place you know best, yourself. Record medical and health facts about you and write them down. Then work back one generation at a time. The list of health and medical facts should be fairly thorough. Include birth and death dates as well as ethnicity since certain diseases are more common in certain ethnic groups. Write down any major illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. Birth defects, allergies, emotional problems, and even alcohol or drug abuse should be included as well. In addition to being detailed with your list, make sure you note the age at which various illnesses or medical conditions occur. You would want to know, for example, at what point in a relative's life diabetes or cancer may have developed.

Remember that when you have all of this information together that you should respect the privacy of your relatives. The information you collect is only for you, your doctor, and those family members who may come after you. So when you go to publish a family website, for instance, put your genealogy on there, but skip the medical genealogy so as not to violate the privacy of any of your family members. Medical genealogy is for information use only in most cases.

So, how do you go about putting together your medical genealogy? You will need to use the resources available to you. You may be able to find information on your medical records and talk to living relatives, but what about those relatives farther back who have long since passed away? For them, you will have to try other methods for tracking down any medical information. Check out death certificates if you can find them because they generally will give you a cause of death. Obituaries offer good information as well. Family bibles, or diaries as well as military records may also yield useful information on the health of your ancestors.

Next, organize the data for your doctor. There are genealogy software programs that help with putting together family trees. They can be used for medical genealogy as well. Use the programs you have or even just a diagram to put together a medical genogram. A genogram is sort of like a family tree, but has diseases and medical conditions outlined in the relationships as well. Your doctor can use this to decide how much you are at risk for certain diseases or conditions. That way you may be able to achieve early detection of any diseases and be able to get them treated early. You may even save your own life with your genogram.

Genealogy is an increasingly popular hobby. Did you know, though, that it can also help save your life or improve the health of your family? It certainly can if you look into your family's medical genealogy. Such information on the medical conditions and diseases that run in your family can be of great help to you and your doctor in determining your family's risk of contracting certain diseases. This, in turn, can result in early detection and treatment of these conditions, which can sometimes be serious. So take some time and put together your family medical genealogy and you just might improve your family's health

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